10 Reasons Why Email Marketing Should Be Your Absolute Priority

Email Marketing has one problem, it’s not as shiny and sexy as Social Media.

Fortunately, that’s the only problem because when it comes to comparing them as marketing vehicles and return-on-investment, Email is by far the most effective way of directly affecting your bottom line and actually growing your business.

I know some of you don’t believe me BUT, I have 10 points here to prove it and if you want, you’re more than welcome to challenge any of them in the comment section… =)

Lets do this!

1) Penetration

There are more than 3.2 billion email accounts today. 95% of online consumers use email and, 91% check their email at least once a day (Source: Exact Target).

There is simply no competition. More importantly, it is such an integral part in our lives, no human being walks around saying he will quit email.

2) Reach

The concept of reach is completely different between Social Media and Email.

In social media we usually talk about “Potential Reach” to refer to the number of followers. For example in the case of SocialMouths, its potential reach on Facebook is 13k. That’s just the number of Page Likes (Fans) but your content only reaches a small fraction of that.

Granted, email is only opened by a fraction of subscribers, but here’s the difference, the actual message will reach its destination, s/he then has the option to not read it.

Now, lets be fair and say that according to ReturnPath, leader in email intelligence, revealed that in the first half of 2013:

18% of all email messages were either blocked or went missing

4% were delivered to the spam or junk folder

Even if 22% emails get lost, we’re still running with much higher potential than posting on Facebook where 74% of your messages are potentially missed (that percentage is higher in most cases).

Take in consideration we are talking about averages, your email or Facebook performance might be different.

3) Life Span

In a recent study, Wisemetrics (via SproutSocial), revealed that 75% of Facebook post impressions were achieved in just two hours and 30 minutes and, 75% of the “Reach” happens in only one hour and 50 minutes.

The life span of a Tweet is so short, its popularity can be predicted in the first five minutes, according to research conducted by The Twouija (via Slice of MIT). But you don’t need much to realize how fast Twitter moves.

Email doesn’t die, it needs to be killed. Email sits there inside your subscriber’s inbox waiting to be acknowledged, even if it’s just to delete it, it requires of an action to end its life.

4) Return-on-Investment

For every $1 spent, $44.25 is the average return on email marketing investment (Exact Target).

For SocialMouths, email marketing accounts for more than 50% of the revenue.

Both Email and Social Media have costs, the difference is that most email providers have a monthly fee or some kind of cost and most social platforms don’t. some of you will even dare to say “Social Media is Free”. Don’t.

5) Analytics

Social media has proven over the years that measuring success is still under discussion and, many companies have different ways and systems to do so. The topic of measuring ROI produces hundreds of blog posts every year without coming to a solid conclusion. Here’s a post from Business Insider about how companies are starting to give up trying to track social media ROI.

Even the simple task of tracking traffic from social media is complicated.

Email on the other hand has a set of solid metrics that have been the standard for years: Growth, Open Rate, Click Rate, Complaints, Unsubscribes, and you can take it from there and even track sales and revenue.

A simple formula can tell you what the monetary value of your email subscriber is. Good luck figuring out the value of your Twitter follower.

6) Engagement

You don’t usually hear the words “email” and “engagement” in the same sentence.

Ask yourself this question: When was the last time a subscriber replied to one of your emails?

If you are a small business, email needs to become the ultimate engagement vehicle, a true 2-way street. We’re not talking about public engagement like Twitter or Facebook, we’re talking about one-on-one with prospects that have clearly expressed interest by joining your list.

First step to engagement paradise?

Do not send email campaigns with a “noreply” address

If replies are too many to handle from your personal account, at least set up a “From” address that’s accessible and checked periodically

7) Integration

The beauty of all this is that email and social media are friends, especially Facebook.

If you’re failing to see these potential connections, you’re probably wasting great opportunities not only for growth but to establish cross platform initiatives.

For point # 7, I’ll let Jay Baer from Convince & Convert do the talking, in case you’re not yet familiar with his already famous Madonna/Lady Gaga presentation.

I’ll go grab a coffee…

8) Promotional

I always talk about the natural perception users have for different networks and how that affects conversion. Facebook for example is viewed by the average user as a place to connect and interact with friends and family. I never heard anybody say “I can’t wait to see what Wells Fargo said on Facebook today”.

Email is perceived differently, perhaps due to its privacy or simply because we’ve grown used to receiving promotional items in the mix with other types.

In a recent study by Blue Kangaroo, 70% of recipients said they’ve used coupons and discounts from promotional email.

A while it’s understandable that the majority of transactions will take place on the web, Mobile email already accounts for 13%.

These are not small numbers and, while some marketers worry about having to be “compatible”, the smart ones are busy working on a whole new channel to deliver their messages: right to the hand of the subscriber!

10) Personalization

Email has the power to send one piece of content to thousands of people and still have some level of personalization.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg, “Segmentation” of your list allows you to separate subscribers in different groups to send highly targeted messages depending on actions taken or specific times.

Recap

Yes, email is the only channel of communication that remains private, that is a direct connection between you and your prospect, and most importantly, it has an opt-in process that turns it into the purest form of Permission Marketing.

I love social media but, as they say, the money is in the list…

Where are you standing today in your email marketing efforts?

Want to learn more?

We just re-launched our “Email Marketing [not so] 101″ course and, for a couple of days we’re letting new members join with a $30 discount.

In this course, you will be able to learn how to set up your entire email marketing system, how to grow a healthy list of qualified prospects, how to measure success beyond vanity metrics, how to design and send campaigns that convert and how to take play the email marketing game like the big boys.

Hello Zulhilmi, it’s still early but, it does affect at this moment. It’s also scary to realize how 1 company holds that kind of power.

@litmusapp said Gmail opens have decreased 18% because of Tabs. Now lets hope those (little) apps like “Mailbox” are able to hijack some of those Gmail accounts.

Thanks for your comment!

http://www.whenpigsflyblog.com/ Jen

Great post! Love all the stats. You make such a good case for email marketing. I’m going to keep this post in my back pocket for the next time a client says that having an email list is too much work or doesn’t seem worth it.

NancyBain

Which autoresponder are you using? Thank in advance, Nancy

http://www.socialmouths.com/ Francisco Rosales

Thanks Jen, funny thing is I feel I spent less time on email than social media. Hmm… I guess that was also a good point, huh?

Another question. I assume the “4 weeks” come via email in the form of a blog/post? Then I can “get at it” when I have the chance, right? Not pre-scheduled webinars, right?

http://www.socialmouths.com/ Francisco Rosales

Nothing is scheduled, you get access to the content and you can do it at your pace.

http://www.llt-group.com/seo.html JeremySeoChicago

Interesting insights. I’d agree that email is a totally different beast to conquer. You numbers just go to reinforce the idea that Facebook email will NEVER get off the ground. Sorry, Zukerberg!

NancyBain

Perfect. Sold.

DanTMarketer

What a great blog entry! For those looking to send emails out to larger campaigns, I use a company called VorexaMail – they are similar to Constant Contact or Mail Chimp, but have pretty incredible pricing. I’ve been with them for about 4 months.

•
Unlimited sending, up to 5 million recipients: $975/month

• Unlimited sending, up to 1 million recipients: $625/month

• Unlimited sending, up to 500,000 recipients: $325/month

• Unlimited sending, up to 100,000 recipients: $99/month

Michael Bian

I’d agree . Email doesn’t die, it requires of an action to end its life. Thanks for your various reasons.

Anyone tried Imnicamail ? I use it but it kind of lags and other problems. does aweber have lagging and deliverability problems?

http://www.socialmouths.com/ Francisco Rosales

Hello Denis, it’s good that you’re looking into this because it happens. My advice is to move to a more reliable service. I don’t know what the size of your business is but I’d start by looking into Aweber and Mailchimp.

Denis Smith

G..gle is becoming so bad for affiliates I guess. But some guys are making it to my primary inbox. I just don’t know how.

Just bought in. Looking forward to this, as I have a client that I think, kickin’ it old school for, might help. I mean, social duct cleaning? C’mon.

Jacqui Murray

I thought places like MailChimp wouldn’t take email lists that didn’t include people who had opted in? Or did I read that wrong?

Gabriella

Hi..
Do you know how many e-mail accounts does a single user use ?
find it out and then recommend e-mail marketing/www.etastar.com

http://writersliving.com/ Monica Carter Tagore

It’s easy to forget about the importance of email, with so many social networks and communication choices available. But email is superior for the reasons mentioned here. It can feel more personal to the receiver and can allow for responses later, as it doesn’t die. Just because someone doesn’t respond immediately, doesn’t mean s/he won’t respond. And email isn’t a fad or flavor of the month. It’s here to stay, unlike some of the networks we’ve seen fall out of favor.

Social networks have their uses and can be great tools, but they shouldn’t replace email in your arsenal of engagement with your audience.

http://www.agencyplatform.com/ Dave Thompson

This is one of those articles which justifies “Why email Marketing should still be a part of the marketing campaign”. And ofcourse email survives for more time unlike social networks. Looking at all the well explained points, I think marketers should re-think on their marketing campaign.

http://www.digitalinsights.in/ Digital Insights

This is a great article Francisco, i think its time now marketers involved email marketing as one of their strategies as well!

Adma Maharjan

I just love the presenting style of your strategies in every article. This certainly proves to be another one. Even i used to not give much priority to emails just right before reading your article. Now i’m really on track to one-to-one tracking individuals.

Thanks!

Adma Maharjan (www.simplify360.com)

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Another great article Francisco. Couldn’t agree more – the “opt-in process that turns it into the purest form of Permission Marketing”. This is something that everyone forgets. Social media may appear sexy, but if you’ve already got the prospective’s email address through their own actions via opt-in, you’ve got their ear. BTW am really enjoying your Email Marketing course. So much information – especially loved week 3!
Cheers
Tania

http://www.sjfpc.com/home.html Steven J Fromm & Associates

Francisco, very compelling post. Got a lot out of it.

Ann Smarty

As always, excellent article and very compelling argument for email marketing.

Jessica McCleese

I don’t have an email list at all. I have an opt-in option and an auto responder, but not a single person has opted in yet. Do I need to already have subscribers to use your program or will this be helpful even without subscribers? My hope of course is that I can figure out how to have them!

faigie

Does this course talk about email marketing and facebook integration? and do you talk about the different options of what content to be sending to our subscribers?

http://www.socialmouths.com/ Francisco Rosales

Hello Faigie, thanks for the question.

The course does have a section that covers how to use Facebook to grow your list. In regards to the content, it doesn’t give you specific ideas for content because it would be really hard to cover several industries.

If you want to join, we do have a full refund policy in case you decide is not a good fit for you. =)

http://www.socialmouths.com/ Francisco Rosales

Hey Jessica, sorry for the delay… I believe all stages of email marketing can benefit from the course. There is an entire module that covers how to set up your system and another one on how to grow your list.